| Okkervil River – Seas Too Far to Reach Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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as much as i enjoy the alluring deglorification of sex in this song, i don't think it is necessarily centered around sexual relations. the song is about the sobering contrast between dream and reality and the truth that there are many things in life that we are not prepared to deal with, such as a father's death or comprehending a new lover. the song can be segmented into three portions. the first couple of verses describe the all-obliging women of the singer's dreams. they do what he needs them to do whenever he needs them to, no matter the fury of the skies. to me, because the women say 'don't harm him' before he awakes shows that they represent general fantasy more than what ladies otherwise would represent in a man's dreams. the second portion of the song immediately jumps into the harshness of reality, a dying father. the silence of the characters is their inability to deal with actuality. they are so baffled as to what to do, they rely on sex to provide, which it does as a bridge to sleep. "waves upon a sea too far to reach," has two meanings to me: the unobtainable perfection of the dream-state and the gap of unknown that he perceives between himself and his lover. in the third segment, the singer finally realizes that he needs to face reality and does so by resolving to explore the unfamiliar land that is his new lover. after waking up from a night of sweet dreaming, he insists on trying again. |
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| Okkervil River – Westfall Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I came to SongMeanings to figure out the exact words to this line: "But all of these people making all these faces didn’t seem like my kith and kin." Makes me think of Meursault from Camus' "The Stranger." That, along with Laurie's murder. |
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| Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – Skeleton Key Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Okay, so I definitely didn't read all of the above comments to see if what I have in mind has or hasn't been said yet, but here goes: This song is about an enabler. Not an enabler in the sense of a mother who's allowing her daughter to do everything she wants by buying her the alcohol, letting her rent hotel rooms or inviting the entire football team over, but an enabler in the sense that his love doesn't state her opinion against anything the singer does. She's a skeleton key in the sense that she allows him to do anything without putting up a fight. If he wants to cheat, she won't have enough power to stop him. She still went through the motions of a relationship with him ("and she got me high, and i hardly noticed there were tears in her eyes"), but as the line shows, he never noticed that she did it probably against her own will. The singer dismisses her as "nothing special" because she appeared to have a weak will and therefore drowned his sorrows in whiskey.... but he still loves her, even though they broke up. She probably left him for another man who'll abuse her and use her before he realizes she's letting him, then she'll move on to the next. She doesn't love these guys (as the singer says), she likes to and is used to being used and tending to a guy that she can (pretend she) loves. Obviously she's confused. |
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| Okkervil River – The War Criminal Rises and Speaks Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Beautiful, beautiful song. In response to 'radio friendly' about "the news today always fades away as you drive by," I think it means that the mind forgets the war criminal/news story completely after a while, ie a drive, until later "when you look into her eyes." | |
| Okkervil River – Song of Our So-Called Friend Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i love this song. absolutely love the album as well; it shares number 1 with bright eyes' "i'm wide awake and it's morning." i only just noticed that julie doiron accompanies will in the last part of the song... and it makes me so happy. | |
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